Here in Houston, El Dia, went out of business a few months ago. As I begin this venture, my second attempt at newspaper publishing (I tried ten years ago, fresh out of college), there are probably at least ten Spanish-language newspaper, split between alternative newsweeklies and classified newspapers in Houston. In the English-language scene there is one English daily newspaper, one alternative weekly, a couple of monthlies and a couple of classifieds.

In this age of declining print, what would make me believe that I could or should engage in this venture?

About the could part…I think that the major trend in the last decade within media lies within consumption. The trend, and I think that the trend is here to stay, is toward a more niche, point-of-view-oriented preference among the people. Lines have slowly blurred between editorial and news content. The people understand and are ok with that. Their response is just to look for media which more or less corresponds with their point of view. Those who are not ok with it are traditional media, because their monopoly on legitimate information mongering is being broken by right-wing Fox, lefty blogs and the strengthening of right-wing radio.

Traditional, supposedly “unbiased” journalism is now kind of just like vanilla ice cream. You’ll eat it, but you won’t go to the other side of the city to buy it if you can buy it at the convenient store. And if the convenient store offers it for free, con menos ganas will you drive to the other side of the city to buy it. This is the predicament that dailies find themselves in. By the time I find a daily to buy, I’ve already heard everything that they have to say on CNN, Yahoo News, NPR and Pacifica. If I haven’t, I can get the same articles from Reuters and the other sevices on Google for free, and I can do it while, I am sending out e-mails and giving out insurance quotes online.

Now, if there is a point of view, or hard-to-come by information, I might drive a few blocks to pick up the paper, especially if its free. For example, I’ve never seen a story on the people that ICE disappears in The Chronicle, but The Houston Catholic Worker ran such a story. Now I want to see everything they publish.

So, as far as journalism goes, I do intend to offer spicy, advocacy-oriented, pro-gente, pro-movimiento oriented pieces. So, what about the idea that our people are not really print-media consumers, especially Spanish-speakers? Hector, you might say, you might drive a few blocks for the Catholic Worker, but you are not most people. You’re weird. You’re a news junkie, an ideologue and lefty nationalist. Most people aren’t, and most just don’t care enough.

My solution to this is that the newspaper is designed as a classified-style newspaper, which has been a staple of the barrio for years, and which I expect to remain so. Small businesses will always need a way to promote their businesses to buyers, and buyers will always look for a way to shop around. Classic community organizing teaches that successful campaigns are those built on the self-interest of the participants. Applied to the newspaper, I am riding the self-interest of buyers and sellers to get the information out to the people who want it.

A free newspaper has been and will be the solution to this self-interest. Sure, there is the internet, but even I, as tech-savvy as I am, don’t think “internet” for searching for some things, like handymen and mechanics. When I do think about consuming services on the internet, I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling. With some exceptions, it sucks.

To increase readership even more, the journalism in El Pueblo will run bilingually.

In essence, I am banking on classifieds to be the backbone of the paper. The journalism will add, let’s say, ten percent to the readership, the English, will add, perhaps, another ten percent to the readership and the point of view will add, hopefully, another ten percent.

As a side note, the alternative newsweeklies use the national advertising style of selling space. I think that they could be in some trouble. Being in the industry years ago, I know that, in general, the circulation numbers that they post to advertisers are bogus. Yes, they are audited, but I have been told by other insiders how to get the audit numbers that you want. It’s simple, when the auditors come, you print more copies and pay someone that week to go pick them up. If national advertisers figured this out, they would pull out immediately. It is unfortunate that our people don’t pick them up because they are too newsy and not classifiedy enough. Classified papers don’t have the “luxury” of this scam. At the end of the three-month contract, the small business guy or gal just wants to know if you brought them business or not. Did you make their phone ring? Yes or no?

The last eight years in business, I have learned that multiple income streams are helpful. When applied to readership, diverse reasons for picking up the paper will be key. Some people have written off print completely, and have even brought this to my attention. I truly believe that there will be a place for print for a century or more, with only the price and availability of paper, relative to the value of the dollar vs other currencies, being able to totally displace print in this part of the world. I will say that the traditional, non-free, daily newspaper will be a thing of the past, just like the family sitting around the radio in the evening is a piece of history.

Print will adapt to the introduction of the internet, just as radio adapted to the introduction of the television. Radio, still has a place. Although TV dramatically reduced the relevance of radio, it did not totally displace it. The same will hold true of the print industry.

I think that the combo that I am presenting will represent the new place of print.

I go into this project with much more experience and acumen than I did ten years ago. Perhaps because of this experience and acumen, I also go in much more humbly and conscientious of the fragility of the project in its initial phase.

In the end, I can cost and business justify it as much as I want, but the reason that I am doing it is because I want to. It is not for profits, which I could more easily attain by focusing on one of my other revenue streams. I am both an ideologue and a practical activist/organizer. The entire reason that I became self-employed was so that I would not have to shut my mouth. I want this paper to share my ideas and to share the good community work of others in Houston. The business aspect to it is simply a practical necessity.  I won’t be able to print as much journalism as I’d like at first, but I will slowly improve the paper.  I took a blind leap of faith the first time around.  This time, I am taking a measured, cautious first step and hoping for the best.

Herminia Balli De Chavana (Mama Mine) and Rogerio Chavana (Papa Roger)

I have to admit that I got a little emotional last night discussing the DREAM Act on my other post.  I think many people have the impression that because I have had the benefit of some material privilege, that my arguments are somewhat based on scholasticism or pure ideology.  It is true that I am an ideologue.  I believe in nationalism and progressive leftist values. 

Take a look at that sweet, teddy bear of a man in that picture up there.  This is my Papa Roger.  He is a man by which many others should be judged, but I guess most of our grandparents are.  If you look closely enough, you can see that even at his age, he is peacocking for the camera.  Look at his left hand, and you will see that he has removed his glasses to take a good picture.  He is a Chavana after all.

He went to the Mexican school, and he went with no shoes.  I interviewed him on his deathbed, and asked why he had joined the army during World War II.  He answered simply, “because I was hungry.”  There was no talk of fighting fascism, no talk of saving democracy or hating the Third Reich.  My grandfather joined because he was hungry and found no other option to alleviate his hunger.  He told me that General McArthur would nickname his squad “His Pancho Villa Boys.”

When I talk about a de facto draft, I don’t talk out of some theory.  No, my grandfather was not “forced” to join the army, but he was the victim of a system which created such pressures, that in effect, there was a de facto draft for him.

That young, hungry man went on to burn other men alive in WWII with flamethrowers.  Sometimes instead of being burned alive, his enemies died because they were deprived of oxygen by his flamethrower.  He was too dignified to tell me, his grandson,  about what happened over there, but I have heard the story from other family members.  His friends fell next to him, and when he came back, he had “shell shock,” now referred to as PTSD, which he did discuss with me.  He went under medical care, but I think that even his grandchildren have had some effect from what he was made to do to other humans, and for what?  Because he was hungry. 

Incidentally, my mother’s father and his six brothers also fought in WWII. 

After coming home, my uncle Tony would get drunk and make his hands into machine guns and re-live the death of his “enemies.”  In a trance, he would return to the battlefield and take his family with him.

It kind of touched something in me when in my other recent post on the DREAM Act a DREAMer friend asked me not to destroy her by fighting against the DREAM Act.  Then I realized that while I might have some material priviledge now, others have the priviledge of not having an ancestor who was the victim of a de facto draft.

DREAMers are hungry. Some are literally hungry like my Papa Roger.  Some are not.  But that is exactly my point.  There are many people for whom college is not a reality.  It has nothing to do with intellect or capability, as one of the other comments suggest on my other post.

For those hungry youth, this DREAM Act, with no work or community service provision, can be their WWII.  I don’t take the phrase “de facto draft” lightly.  I apologize to my good friends whom I might offend, but this is not something that I can sweep under the rug.

I hope that you can see, that I am not simply putting my ideology before your need for documentation.  I am driven by my own family’s experience too. 

May the creator bless all of you on your quest.  May the creator bless our unity.  Y que en paz descansen los abuelos.

This week I started test sales of El Pueblo Newspaper, a print newspaper, which will give a larger voice to this blog and advocacy journalism in Houston. As a result, I expect to be posting less frequently on this blog, maybe once a week.  This note will be clipped to the top of my blog in the meantime.

Check back for my newer posts below. It’s the fourth day in the week, and the sales so far have come as planned. If the tests run consistently over two or three more weeks, I will fully commit to publishing the first issue on August 1st.

You’ll have to forgive the mess on the site, but you can check progress of the paper at ElPuebloDeHouston.com. I know most people don’t give out the site address until it’s ready, but I’m okay with it. Most of us realize that everything is a process, and that things just don’t happen without some errors and effort.

My BB graduates from 5th grade this year!!!

In about a month or so, I will begin running tests for the viability of a new community publication. 

Should the tests indicate that the project is viable (and I hope they will), I hope to begin publishing by early to mid-August.  The primary goals of the publication shall be two-fold:

1.  To have a regular and disciplined vehicle with which to promote the worldview that I have been promoting for years.

2.  To promote news and events from “the coalition” and its supporting groups, using the voice of advocacy journalism. 

Secondary goals include the creation of jobs and income opportunities  for people who support the work of progressive organizations; an avenue to promote some of my other lines of business, and to aid in re-prioritizing some of the focus of other media, which, at times, ignore stories which are very important to us.

At least initally, the publication will be a mix of a “shopper” publication and an alternative weekly.  The inital goals will be to publish 10,000 to 20,000 copies twice a month and to distribute in the northeast, northwest and southeast areas of Houston.

If the project comes to fruition, I will have a need for salaried and commission-only sales people, contract distributors and freelance translators and writers.  If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do not hesitate to contact me as soon as possible. 

I have an immediate need for help with names for the publication and with identifying prospective small business advertisers, who would be interested in promoting their business in such a publication as well as through online formats that will be packaged along with the print advertisements.  If you would like to suggest a name for the publication or if you would like to advertise or suggest an advertiser, please hit me up on Facebook, by phone, by e-mail or the feedback function of this blog. 

I believe that this is an idea whose time has come, as I understand that Tony Diaz is working on his own English-language publication and the crew from El Gato at UH is doing the same.  Tip of the sombrero to all y adelante!

Sincerely,

Hector A. Chavana Jr.

Anyway, I haven’t been very active lately because I am working on these new goals.  There is one hope that I have, which I hope to put in the goals column, that will increase the range of this blog’s voice a bit.  Can’t say what it is just yet, but bear with me the next few weeks.  I’ll be out of site and offline a little more than usual, but I hope you will continue to drop by.  I won’t be totally offline, but you can expect a few less posts.